Profile: Vernon Jordan

Vernon Jordan was a participant or observer in the following events:

Joseph Paul Franklin. [Source: Jackson Clarion Ledger]Joseph Paul Franklin, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, confesses to attempting to kill Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. Franklin’s motives are, according to his own statements, frankly racist. He admits to having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, a former believer in the Christian Identity theology (see 1960s and After), and for a long time considered himself a Nazi. On March 6, 1978, he shot Flynt outside a Georgia courtroom, paralyzing the publisher for life. On May 29, 1980, he shot and severely injured Jordan outside a Fort Wayne, Indiana, Marriott hotel. Franklin says he tried to kill Flynt because he published photographs of a racially mixed couple having simulated sex. He says he shot Jordan, an African-American, because he saw him with a white woman. From 1977 through 1980, Franklin says, he embarked on a “mission” to rid America of blacks, Jews, and whites who like minorities. He claims the credit for robbing a number of banks, bombing a Tennessee synagogue, killing two black men in Utah who were jogging with white women, and shooting a black man and white woman as they left a Tennessee restaurant. In total, Franklin says he may have killed 20 people in a 10-state, racially motivated shooting spree; when asked how many he’d killed, he says, “Not nearly enough.” Franklin explains why he shot so many people: “I was trying to start a race war at the time.… I figured other whites would do it, too, and eventually we’d have a full-fledged race war.” He says that in 1977 he went on the “warpath. I decided to cut loose in 1977. I was working these dead-end jobs. I thought, ‘I’m just going to go out and kill some Jews.’” Franklin says he was inspired in part by convicted serial killer Charles Manson. He is convicted of a number of crimes, including the 1977 murder of Missouri resident Gerald Gordon, and sentenced to death for Gordon’s murder. During his murder trial, Franklin calmly explains the length he went to to avoid detection: buying a rifle in Dallas through a classified ad, filing off the serial number, and carrying it in a guitar case; finding synagogues in the Yellow Pages, using a bicycle to approach and leave the scenes of his crimes quickly and without detection; and using a police scanner to keep abreast of law enforcement activities. He tells the court that he has no regrets regarding any of his crimes: asked if he feels remorse for any of his actions, he says: “I can’t say that I do. The only thing I’m sorry about is that it’s not legal.” Asked, “What’s not legal?” he replies, “Killing Jews.” Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who has interviewed a large number of serial killers and spree killers, testifies that Franklin is a paranoid schizophrenic, details the brutal physical abuse he suffered as a child, and details a number of bizarre beliefs he seems to hold. Franklin denies being “stark raving mad,” but admits to a few “minor neuroses.” As to Lewis’s contention that he was unable to stop himself from committing his crimes, Franklin says: “I think it is hogwash, to tell you the truth. I knew exactly what I was doing.” Lewis later says she believes all serial and spree killers are mentally or emotionally dysfunctional and not directly responsible for their actions. [Time, 11/16/1980; New Yorker, 2/24/1997; Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010] The 1989 novel Hunter, by William Pierce, the author of the infamous Turner Diaries (see 1978), will be dedicated to Franklin. The main character of the novel kills interracial couples in an attempt to foment a race war. [New York Times, 7/24/2002] The racist, white supremacist group Aryan Nations will give Franklin a medal for his actions. [Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010]

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